When I clawed out of Kevin’s house
dirty and covered in blood;
the sun swept into my eyes,

like I was seeing Edgewood
for the first time.

Aaron Samuels, raised in a Black-Jewish household in Providence Rhode Island, is an award-winning poet, educator, and community organizer. Aaron has performed his work for the last six years, ranking among the top poets in the youth, collegiate, and national competitions. He has served as a coach for the Providence, Washington DC, and Boston Youth Poetry teams. Aaron was the founder and coach for the Washington University collegiate and adult teams. As an educator, Aaron stresses the urgency for cross-cultural dialogue, teaching writing workshops at schools and community organizations across the country. Aaron has been a featured speaker and performer for TV One’s Verses & Flow, the Louder than a Bomb Chicago Youth Poetry Festival, the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival, the Urban Word Preemptive Education Conference, and the St. Louis Amnesty International Poetry Reading. His work has been published or is forthcoming in Tidal Basin Review, Mandala Journal, Sole Literary Journal, Muzzle Magazine and Stark Literary Journal. Aaron’s first book of Poetry, Mutually Assured Destruction, has been described as “both a personal reflection on the intersections of race and faith, and an unrelenting critique of U.S. Empire” as it dives into the confluences of race, religion, class and gender in the modern world. His next book, Yarmulkes and Fitted Caps, will be released on Write Bloody Publishing in August 2013.